Wednesday, 29 April 2009

But there are lots of things that I want lately, and I don't get those either, so don't worry about it too much. For example, I want more time to write. I know, I know, I should make time, because writing is what I want to do with my life and I will never be any good at it unless I practise all the time. It doesn't work like that though. All the really great advice says I should give myself a specific time schedule and write to that, but that kind of ignores the fact that inspiration is a little bit unpredictable. For example, I get some of my best lines of prose standing under the shower, and I can't very well take my laptop or journal in there now, can I?

What else do I want? I want to pass my first semester at university. I want to join a writer's group or make one of my own with my friends. I want to get published. I want a Nintendo DSi.

I think probably the bottom line in all of this is, there is a pressure I am putting on myself to be a certain type of person, and I am coming to realise that being a writer is just like any other job only there is a much lower success rate for at least a little while.

Friday, 17 April 2009

I'm going to put the blurb for my novel up, and I would really appreciate some serious suggestions.

"Winston is a contemplative, unambitious young boy who begins his search for love in the summer of 1937. Circumstances lead him to Sarah, whose determination to please her father make her more and more like him every day. Their romance is brief and inevitably interrupted by overseas conflict.

Separated, their lives go on; Sarah's under the watchful eyes of her plotting family and friends, and Winston's as a prinsoner of the Japanese. They are not only faced with the loss of their freedom, they must also defeat the trechery of their own emotions. Eventually they are forced to choose between a dream and reality."

Monday, 13 April 2009

On Monday, she painted her fingernails bright pink. She defied anyone to call her a girly-girl. The polish dried within sixty seconds. She liked that. Naturally her nails grew shapely and strong. Never had she needed to buy fake ones from the chemist up the road the way other girls did. She liked her nails because of this. They made her feel special. Something about her was extraordinary.

When the polish was dry (60 seconds by five nails on each hand by two hands is 600 seconds which is ten minutes) she collected her satchel and counted the things inside. One file. One stapled together stack of papers. One coloured notebook and unit guide (matching of course). One blue pen, one black pen, one red pen and one tube of white-out. One bottle of water. One phone (which never rang). One purse. Satisfied, she slung it over her right shoulder. Then, she shifted it to her left, just for a change of pace.

On the way out the door, she purposefully smoothed her hair back behind one ear so that she could admire her fingernails in the mirror. It made her smile. Because even if every other part of her life was colourless, at least she had pink fingernails.